Tag Archive: fiberglass

“Hot Tubs Are In” according to Dan Oliver from NBS news 35 years ago today, on April 11th, 1978.

The news report covered the emerging hot tub trend that was moving from California to the east with a record number of spas being sold coast to coast.

Why were hot tubs so popular? Purely social, they concluded. Hot tubs are a place “where people can sit around and have good conversations, and get to know each other better.” It’s also noted that “acquaintances always come out of a hot tub better friends than they were when they went in.”

35 years of research has concluded that hot tubs, though very ‘social’, also reduce stress, helps us sleep better, and provide other warm water therapy benefits that are greatly needed in the fast-paced and stressful world we live in today.

The modern hot tub movement did in fact start in California during the 1960’s, when creative hot tub enthusiasts were designing hot tubs out of oak wine barrels. It was even rumored somewhere that the first hot tub was conceived the day a winemaker fell into a barrel of warm mulled wine during a wine tasting. (If wine and hot tubs is your thing – check out our last article on that subject here.)

Oak, as it turned out, wasn’t the best material for hot tubbing and manufacturers moved to redwood, then to fiberglass by the 1970’s.

By 1978 the trend had made its way to the east coast, as most Californian trends eventually do, and the rest is history.

Only 5 years after this report on the hot tub boom hitting the east coast, ThermoSpas opened it’s doors in Shelton, CT. The new hot tub company expanded so quickly that it grew out of two locations before settling into it’s current home – a 140,000 square foot warehouse plant on 14 acres in Wallingford, CT.

From there ThermoSpas went on to revolutionize the hot tub industry by redesigning many aspects of the modern hot tub from patented shell fabrication, to plumbing, manufacturing, and water testing technologies. These innovative redesigns are what helped to make ThermoSpas hot tubs the best and most reliable hot tubs in the world.